Worthy.
This tangled word, a mystery.
The back and forth of it all. Only He is worthy. And yet, and yet, each of us is worthy, for each one He willingly lay down His rightful throne in exchange for a crown of thorns.
And my bro Tom grapples with the Advent mystery as only he can.
Thank you.
One Christmas Eve, a long, long time ago, I asked Tracy for some carrots, walked out into a frosty night, chomped down on them a bit, then scattered their butt-ends across the end of our driveway on the way to our garage. I grabbed an armful of gardening straw, and on my way back to the house, threw it liberally across a snowbank and across the front walkway. I then dotted the area with reindeer tracks by jabbing a coat rack dowel into the snow, amid the scattered grass and vegetable-remains. Inside, Tracy carefully wrote replies on our kids’ scrawled letters to Santa. When I re-entered the house, I dutifully chomped bites from our kids’ proffered sugar cookies (I ate all of the brownies) before we settled down to a late evening of toy assembly and gift wrapping.
I remember a long time ago, getting into an argument with a fellow-Christian about the whole Santa-thing. “When is it right,” Tim asked, “to lie to your children--especially about a day as important as Christmas? What impact will that have on their faith on the day ‘they find out’?”
I grew up in a home in which I learned that faith—my walk with God—was based on objective truth: a series of events orchestrated by a loving God (unbeknownst to me) who pursued my love from across the cosmos. This divine pursuit punctuated human experience some two thousand years ago, beginning in a humble Palestinian stable, culminating in an empty tomb on a morning outside of Jerusalem. These facts, established by historical archeology and anecdotal testimony throughout the ages, provided the bedrock surety of the story. But that is only the story. When does the story become my story?
The power of that story of so long ago, is only made mine when it becomes inspired—imbued with mystery. Though necessarily bound by fact, my beliefs, my faith, only becomes significant when I step out into that which I may not be so sure of—the mystery and wonder of what might be rather than only what is.
Maybe the mystery of Santa that my children experienced so long ago can be used as a template—a stencil that prepares their minds for a world that is bigger than their childish comprehensions—which can, in turn, prepare their hearts (and mine) for a love—God’s love— that breaks through any empirical skepticism . Within the context of a rich Christian education and heritage, the belief in the mystery of Christmas can prepare a son or daughter for the far more profound—and may I say, far more improbable Mystery of Christmas. The Cosmological Omnipotent wrapping Himself in human skin to become killable is even more unlikely than a fat, flying elf and eight tiny reindeer.
The Mystery is God in the form of a baby. The mystery and wonder of the Christmas season prepares me to trust the entrance into a relationship beyond my wildest imaginations: the mystery of Christ within me.
